The solution for those golfers who cannot spend four or more hours on the course is to find worthy, shorter tracks. The South Shore of Boston offers four superior alternatives that are but minutes off the direct road from the city to Cape Cod: Weathervane Golf Club, Rockland Golf Course, Little Harbor and North Hill C.C. Leigh MacKay has more.

Few regions can compare with Cape Cod's wealth of golf courses, which number more than 40. Best of all, most of them are open to the public. One of these, however, Sandwich Hollows Golf Club, has been more like a secret haven just for locals and in-the-know vacationers. Leigh MacKay has more on this no-longer-hidden gem.

Many of the best golf courses on Cape Cod are either private or attached to pricey resorts. Thankfully, there is also a strong collection of local favorites that can make a three-day, $200 golf trip possible.

Blue Rock Golf Resort in South Yarmouth, Mass. might be lacking some of the amenities of Cape Cod's larger, fancier resorts -- the championship course, the spa, the beach -- but it has a way of seducing guests into a relaxed state of mind. Blue Rock offers the down-home charm that bigger big-box resorts just can't replicate. It's the kind of place where the staff members will remember your name and how you like your coffee.

Like many other private country clubs, the International Golf Club & Resort 45 minutes west of Boston is in the midst of a transition. Once only a private club, the International has gotten creative in attracting new members and new business. While the Pines Course remains exclusively private, the club recently began offering public tee times after 9 a.m. on the Oaks Course, its newer, more forgiving Tom Fazio golf course.

With six par 3s and two short par 4s, Bay Pointe Club in Onset, Mass. seems to be ripe for the taking, but it rarely happens. Low scores tend to be derailed by long par 3s, rolling topography, 38 bunkers and two ponds. The operative word about playing it is fun. Thanks to the par 3s, golfers get a couple extra chances at a hole in one. It's one of the best values of golf on or near Cape Cod.

There are subtle signs of the historical significance of the land now occupied by the Red Tail Golf Club in Devens, Mass. It's hard to fathom that once upon a time barrack after barrack of Fort Devens once lined the midsection of the golf course where holes 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 now reside. These days, Red Tail is tops among the Boston area's best public golf courses. And it's a destination play worth finding.

Like The Country Club at Brookline, there's plenty of history at the Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course at Putterham. But as a pure golf experience, Robert T. Lynch holds its own. The holes have all kinds of interesting angles and greens complexes, plus there's been an effort of late to restore the course, undoubtedly better than it's ever been.

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